Public Events

Public Events

More than 28,000 students in Pennsylvania receive special education services for autism. Parents, educators and service providers of children living with autism will converge upon Penn State to share the latest updates and best practices to better serve the growing demographic. The National Autism Conference will be held Aug. 3-6 at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel at the University Park campus.

The Penn State Breazeale Nuclear Reactor is holding an open house Aug. 18 to celebrate 60 years in operation. The open house includes public tours as well as an anniversary program highlighting the history, accomplishments and future of the reactor.

Professionals, academics and students from across the nation and world will discuss opportunities and developments in the solar industry, including solar science and engineering, energy economics, public policy, education and energy efficient architecture at SOLAR 2015, the American Solar Energy Society's national conference, hosted this year by Penn State July 28-30.

As Election Day 2016 approaches, a majority of U.S. citizens over the age of 18 are eligible to vote — regardless of their race or skin color, ancestry, sex, education, income, literacy, religion, English language skills, previous incarceration or disability — but this has not always been the case. The exhibit “Journey to Inclusion: Voting Rights in America,” on display through July 2016 in the Diversity Studies Room, 203 Pattee Library, reflects on nearly 240 years of voting rights history in the U.S.

The first close-up photos of Pluto gave astronomers their best look ever at the dwarf planet, which has mountains and canyons and possibly even snow.

"It really says a lot about what we can do with our technology," said Darren Williams, professor of physics and astronomy at Penn State Behrend. "These images were taken by a spacecraft 3 billion miles from Earth, functioning just as we intended it to."

Free, daily bus tours during Penn State's Ag Progress Days, Aug. 18-20, will give visitors an opportunity to get a glimpse of research projects at the 2,000-acre Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research Center. Tours will focus on topics such as crop production, woodlot management, wildlife habitat, biofuel feedstocks and water quality.

While it’s common knowledge for many people that Penn State is a global leader in science, technology and engineering, some don’t realize is that Penn State also is home to the longest-running university nuclear reactor in America. “Penn State Power: 60 Years of the Radiation Science and Engineering Center” — on display July 8-Aug. 19 in Sidewater Commons in Pattee and Paterno Libraries — honors the center’s longstanding reputation for nuclear energy education, research and service.

Penn State's popular AstroFest program, a four-night festival of astronomy activities and stargazing during the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, will welcome visitors from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m. July 8-11 on the fifth floor of Davey Laboratory.

The Penn State Department of Statistics will host the 2015 Rao Prize Conference on Thursday, May 14, 2015 on the Penn State University Park campus in 102 Thomas Building. This one-day conference, which is free and open to the public, begins with registration at 8:00 a.m. and continues until 5:20 p.m.

The Stuckeman Center for Design Computing (SCDC) at Penn State is hosting the SCDC spring open house and symposium "Design Across Boundaries" from 1-5:30 p.m. on May 5 at the Stuckeman School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.

Mark Ballora, associate professor of music technology, will present "Seeing With Your Ears: Visualizing Data With Sound" as the final Research Unplugged event of the spring semester at 12:30 p.m. on April 23 in Schlow Centre Region Library.

Thomas Kelly, Division Vice President for Innovation and New Technologies at CAMECA Instrument Inc., has been selected the 2015 Taylor Lecturer. He will deliver the keynote talk “Atomic-Scale Tomography: An Achievable Vision” as part of the 2015 Nelson W. Taylor Lecture in Materials. His talk will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday, April 23, in the HUB-Robeson Center’s Freeman Auditorium.